TheHolyCity 109
that was your own contado. According to Bishop Sicardo, Milanese devotion
to the ancient martyrs Gervase and Protase arose, not because Saint Am-
brose had miraculously discovered their bones, but because the city success-
fully concluded the Lombard Wars on their feast day. The saints had proved
their intercessory power by crowning their day with victory. The Milanese
knew what was expected. They changed the opening chant of the martyrs’
Mass to commemorate the victory they had given the city.^46 Tuscan saints
too manifested their favor by victories. The Florentines traced their special
devotion to John the Baptist back to his feast in 401 , when, through his
intercession, the city defeated the invading Goths. Centuries later, after the
Florentine victory at Campaldino on 11 June 1289 , the commune adopted as
one of its city patrons (there were almost always more than one) Saint Barna-
bas, the saint whose day marked the victory.^47 Defeat might imply disfavor,
but this conclusion did not suggest itself easily. The Modenese were loath to
go to war on Mondays and Tuesdays, since they had suffered humiliating
defeats on those days.^48 In cases of misfortune, it was usually the weekday,
not the saint, that got the blame.
Communes changed or added patrons after victories. Saint George, the
warrior saint, became a patron of Siena after its great victory over Florence
at Montaperti; at Faenza, Saint Cassian became a city patron after the Guelf
victory that reestablished the commune in 1280. Female saints gave victory
on their feasts, too—as the serving girl Saint Zita did for Lucca in 1278 and
the lay penitent Saint Margherita did for Cortona in 1298. Examples could
be multiplied endlessly.^49 In art, saints proclaimed their victories in war.
Throughout Tuscany, especially in Florence, saints on altarpieces sometimes
hold an olive branch, absent from their usual iconography. It means that the
city where the image was painted had enjoyed victory on the saint’s feast
day.^50 No victory-giving saint compared to Saint Sixtus at Pisa. This second-
century pope repeatedly saved Pisa’s armies in pitched battles fought on 6
August, his feast day. By 1216 , the commune had constructed a chapel in his
honor. The citizenry annually honored him by bell ringing and candle offer-
ings. Saint Sixtus became so identified with the commune that, by the 1280 s,
city assemblies met in his church rather than the cathedral.^51
During the early to mid- 1200 s, there was no greater danger to northern
republican liberties than the tyrant Ezzelino da Romano, vicar of the em-
- Sicardo,Mitrale, 9. 28 , col. 415.
- See Trexler,Public Life, 77 ; on Barnabas and Florence, see Webb, ‘‘Cities of God,’’ 122 – 24.
- Salimbene,Cronica( 1284 ), 786 , Baird trans., 547.
- Vauchez, ‘‘Reliquie, santi e santuari,’’ 461 – 62. On Margherita’s cult, see Cannon and Vauchez,
Margherita of Cortona. - George Kaftal,Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting(Florence: Sansoni, 1952 ), 1 :xx; see also
Webb, ‘‘Cities of God,’’ 121. - Pisa Stat.i( 1286 ), 2. 1 , pp. 345 – 47 , esp. pp. 345 – 46 ; on the assemblies of the Popolo: ibid., Popolo
94 ,p. 623 , and Pisa Stat.ii( 1313 ), 2. 1 , pp. 269 – 70. On the mingling of ecclesiastical and civil identities,
see Jones,Italian City-State, 437 – 38.